Makers of fabric articles such as quilts, wall hangings, hand made blankets, banners, tapestries, weavings, needle art, embroidery, flags, rugs, carpets, curtains, drapes, fabric or soft sculptures, and other like articles display these from time to time. In fact, articles that may benefit from the invention may include any flexible, generally planar article such as paper, cardboard, non-woven fabrics, animal hides, plastic sheets, and still others. As such articles may be somewhat large, arranging them in large numbers for public exhibitions entails certain difficulties. To display a fabric article to best effect, the article must be spread out flat, preferably in a vertical plane such as against a wall, which requires considerably more space than would be required to store the article in a folded condition. Typically, those displaying such articles suspend each article from a suitable support so that the articles hang straight down due to gravity.
The most frequently practiced way to suspend fabric articles is from the top edge. Sleeves and loops are conventionally sewn or otherwise affixed to the back of the fabric near the top edge to accommodate a pole or other support structure such as hooks. Poles, where used, are typically greater than the width of the article being displayed. The pole or hooks are then suspended from a wall, partition, or display frame by suitable brackets or in any other suitable way.
While these measures succeed, they suffer from undesirable characteristics. Illustratively, poles, hooks, chains, and their supporting structure which are visible when the fabric article is displayed detract from the appearance of these fabric articles such as quilts which are, after all, forms of art work.